If you do something on a Friday night, the whole weekend feels longer, doesn't it? And I felt some of our household needed to blow away some January blues last week, so we headed into Western Super Mare for a walk along the seafront. It just clears your head to look out to see and focus your eyes on the horizon.
We got into town at about 5 and it was really, really quiet. We had a little walk along the sea wall with the kids of course walking on the wall because it's like some unwritten rule that they just absolutely have to walk along a wall when they see one, and then we headed to Brunello Lounge, which Is a stone's throw from the Grand Pier.
We used to live in Bristol and so frequented Tinto Lounge on Gloucester Road, used to go to Deco Lounge when that was open on Cotham Hill, and have been to The Lounge in Bedminster, so we knew it was just a really easy casual place to take 3 tired kids (who were actually very well behaved when it came to it on a Friday evening). We got there about 5:30 and there were a few people there, but it was mostly quiet. And so we could get the table with all the nice sofas and seats next to the bookshelf of books and toys.
The kids found a brand new Jenga game that we didn't let them open, but then later wished we had because the Uno cards they found instead are actually pretty sticky and made you feel like you needed to wash your hands repeatedly. So we did. But it was still great that they've got this selection of games there and our toddler could just keep looking through book after book from the bookshelf. I was quite impressed when he started to read Life of Pi to himself (!).
My 10 year old was astounded at the amount of art on the walls. If you haven't been to a Lounge, they've got a very distinctive style with so much vintage style art everywhere and loads of eclectic light fittings along with big comfy sofas or lots of classic wooden furniture. They are quite dark with candlelight in the evenings but this just gives it a really nice cozy atmosphere. My seven year old would also like me to mention that she really liked the ladies’ bathroom because it was all pink.
The best thing for me about Lounges though is the choice on the menu. I’m not a fussy eater - far from it - but whenever we go somewhere, I figure “well, there’ll probably be a burger on the menu” and that means I’ll fancy something, because you know, really, when you look at a menu, there might only be one or two things you really feel like paying money for. But at a Lounge, I'm often spoiled for choice, and this last visit was definitely no exception.
I'm still in the frame of mind that a meal out should be between £10-£15 for a main course, and so often I realise that that is the view of 3 years ago. But in Lounge, you can still get a really lovely meal for £10-£15, and I think that's great. We opted for the Persian lamb flatbread and the buttermilk chicken. I was tempted by the Korean buttermilk chicken burger which sounded like it had more dressings than the chicken on it’s own but I felt it was probably slightly healthier not to have the brioche bun. The Persian lamb flatbread was really, really tasty with coriander pesto and whipped feta. My only slight criticism of it was that the pitta it was on was really quite hard - you almost needed a steak knife, and I was kind of a little bit unsure how to start eating it. It was like a really hard base pizza and I think I was just expecting something softer, when a flat bread is a little puffier (but still flat, obviously). But once I got into it it was great and I would absolutely order it again.
The main star of the show though were the kids' meals. My 10 year old often begs and whines to be allowed to order from the adult's menu but whether we let him or not depends on how small the kids' portion seems to be or how generous we're feeling (as it’ll generally add £10 to the bill for him to order from the main menu). But tonight, as this was just a Friday night out to start the weekend, we said we had to order from the kids' menu. And so he (jokingly) muttered to himself about being stuck whether to choose a small pizza or a dry burger, his assumptions of what the choices would be like.
But he was absolutely wrong. He'd opted for the burger, and his issue with kids' menu burgers is that they are always a really little bun with just a burger in it and nothing else. I said that he could spend extra to get cheese on it and then he normally asks if he can have some salad from our plate to put into the burger. But when this burger arrived, it was a massive patty that seemed like an actually nicely made burger in a decent sized roll - and best of all had a big piece of lettuce and slice of tomato in it. He also had a perfectly decent sized portion of chips and some beans. And the crazy thing was he'd also previously had a little cup of hummus with 2 mini breadsticks and 2 pieces of carrot in it, and it came with a carton of juice, all as part of the kids meal deal. We hadn’t actually realised the starter and drink came with every main course - it’s a rosette at the top of the kids’ menu but then each main course is still priced individually on the menu so we thought we were just ordering that, so we'd actually bought them a coke and lemonade beforehand. Therefore I brought the cartons home for another day, so they didn't just get wasted in tonight's meal. The whole thing, his breadsticks, carrots, and hummus followed by his very impressive burger and a carton of drink came to £6.85 (plus a little more for the cheese). And in this day and age of food either being really expensive or really small portions or a bit rubbish, we were really impressed with that because it was a good sized portion, really nice food, and a great price.
Therefore, Lounge is officially our favorite place for a kid to get a burger. My daughter had a burger and chips as well, my toddler had sausage and chips, which included two normal sized sausages, but they were quite well cooked - although that didn't stop him eating nearly all of it. My daughter said her burger was really tasty and both of the older ones said they would absolutely give their child's menu burger a 10 out of 10.
Overall we all had a really lovely evening in Brunello Lounge. It’s very kid friendly; there were other families in there, but there were also other sort of tween girls there with their mums dressed up in their sequins like it was a great place to take someone around the age of 10 out for a birthday meal or something at about 5:30pm on a Friday. But there are also adults there without kids as they do a cocktail club, so there were people there buying nice looking cocktails. And it's just a really easy atmosphere with great food at good prices.
You can find your nearest Lounge on their website here.
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